Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of , vol. 152, part 2, 2019, pp. 203–215. ISSN 0035-9173/19/020203-13

Drawing in the Colony

Louise Anemaat Executive Director, Library & Information Services and Dixson Librarian, State Library of NSW Email: [email protected]

Abstract Before photography, recording images required drawing or painting, and, without printing, reproduc- ing images required copying by hand. This paper discusses drawings dating back to first European settlement in New South Wales, specifically a large collection of 745 zoological and botanical draw- ings from the 1790s which was bought by the State Library in 2011. Who were the artists? Which were the originals and which the copies? Answers are not easily obtained. We can however enjoy the images, very well preserved.

Introduction1 food shortages and rationing, and a crippling ur usual picture of the convict colony sense of isolation, of having been dumped, Ofounded in January 1788 at abandoned and forgotten, but there were Cove focuses, rightly, on extremes of hard- also people who found the time and space to ship, isolation and punishment, the sudden explore and observe, and to draw and record dispossession of Indigenous cultures, on the the strange new world that they found in environmental and psychological impacts of NSW. colonisation, isolation and distance. This has prompted us to look more closely The stories we tell are of crimes and mis- at natural history drawings, and the practice demeanours, and the slow conquering of a of drawing during roughly the first twelve or landscape that at the time was considered so years of the colony. both alien and inferior. Today the impression Drawing in the Colony remains of a nation built on near starvation, suffering, floggings and hangings and a sense Drawing started early in the colony. The of utter futility. first drawing likely to have been made in But could our ideas about the the colony was of a Grass Tree, drawn on have become just a little lazy? 11 February 1788, just two weeks after the Of course, there is truth in these endur- arrival of the fleet of eleven convict ships ing stories. Life in the colony was without at , by surgeon Arthur Bowes question a difficult, bewildering and alien- Smyth (Illus. 1). ating experience. The climate was harsh The literature devoted to the art of Aus- and unfamiliar, the environment was chal- tralia’s First Fleet is thick on the ground and lenging and unpredictable. There were dire it is rare for new material to surface to add to the canon of existing drawings but this is exactly what occurred in 2011 when a large 1 A lecture given at the Australian National Maritime collection of 745 botanical and zoological Museum, on 15 June 2019, under the auspices of drawings from the 1790s appeared on the the Australiana Fund. The article is extracted from Anemaat (2014). market, from a private aristocratic library

203 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Anemaat — Drawing in the Colony held at Knowsley Hall near Liverpool, Eng- present as a tangled knot of problems — land, and owned by the 19th Earl of Derby. drawings held privately, or held in collecting The drawings had been compiled during the institutions in the United Kingdom, Ger- 1790s by a now forgotten but then widely many, New Zealand and . known and acclaimed botanist, Aylmer Only some very, very few of the drawings Bourke Lambert. They were acquired for are signed, and can therefore be formally the collection of the State Library of NSW ascribed to a small number of either naval in 2011. and convict artists, or ships’ surgeons. Attri- butions then are uncertain. Two artists who consistently signed their drawings were Midshipman George Raper, who had a distinctive personal style; there is a lovely sinuousness in his drawings (Illus. 2). , a convict with art train- ing, also signed his work against the explicit instructions of his overseer and patron, First Fleet Surgeon-General . Watling 1: Grass tree or “A View of the Tree at had been for forgery, escaped en Bay, wh yields ye Yellow Balsam, & route at Cape of Good Hope, and eventually of a Wigwan,” 1788/. arrived in NSW in 1792. Watercolour (Mitchell Library ML Safe 1/15 no. 6 FL1607156)

The emergence of these drawings prompted new, detailed art historical analy- sis of the traditions of natural history art production and its convention of copying and trans-Pacific dissemination. And I think it is fair to say that while we knew the collec- tion was something special, we didn’t quite know exactly what we had at the time. What could the sudden emergence of a large, previously unknown collection of natural history drawings from NSW, add to our understanding of those early years of the colony? 2: “Bird and flower of ,” or We will look more closely at how this col- Kookaburra (Dacelo novæguineæ), 1789/George lection fitted in with other, known collec- Raper. Watercolour. (Raper Collection drawing tions from the same period, why and how its no. 57. Natural History Museum, ) appearance has made us look again at what we thought we knew. Adding to the confusion is the fact that The various sets and collections of water- that the strong demand for images of new colour drawings from the same period still species amongst gentlemen, and occasionally women, amateurs of science in Britain meant

204 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Anemaat — Drawing in the Colony that copying was rife — in which is perhaps not surprising, but also in NSW, and possibly also on board, shared by officers on board returning ships, or even copied by Company Artists in India during stopovers. Accordingly, art historians and curators have, for convenience, assigned comparable works into a couple of broad stylistic and tem- poral groupings: “The ” and “The Sydney Bird Painter,” for instance. Though each of these implies a single art- ist’s hand at work, the Port Jackson Painter probably refers to at least six, possibly eight, different artists. The Sydney Bird Painter attribution refers to at least two people — 3: Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, one superior artist and one far less talented. 1837/William Derby. Oil on canvas. Courtesy To complicate things even more, the early The Rt Hon. The Earl of Derby history and provenance of the drawings has for almost every collection become obscured. Some of these related collections have been held by cultural institutions for decades, for over a century, but the connections between them have largely gone unnoticed. The Derby Collection We now refer to the Knowsley Hall drawings as the Derby Collection for the 13th Earl of Derby (Illus. 3) who had purchased the collection in 1842, following the death of his friend, (Illus. 4). Lambert had compiled the collection during his lifetime. The public emergence of this collection has been a little like finding that lost piece of a jigsaw at the back of the sofa. Comparing and considering this newly emerged collection of drawings alongside 4: Frontispiece Lambert (1803–07) other known collections has shown them to be intimately interconnected. Three volumes we knew were well docu- The collection consists of 745 natural mented copies of drawings from the iconic history drawings bound into six volumes. Watling Collection compiled by John White Half had not been seen since at least the who had lent his collection to botanist 1940s; the existence of the other half was Alymer Bourke Lambert in 1797. Lambert completely unrecorded. then had White’s drawings copied. Since

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1902 the Watling Collection has been held Copying in London’s Natural History Museum while Copying has become a central part of the Lambert’s copies have been in the Derby story of drawing and art practice in the library since Lambert’s death in 1842. colony: copying was a valid way of circulat- We know the background and contexts ing drawings, a way of responding to the of many of Lambert’s drawings because fascination of the new, of feeding the appe- Lambert was such a prolific and enthusias- tite of people like Sir and their tic letter-writer to his friend, James Edward extensive like-minded networks, to possess Smith, founder of the Linnaean Society, their own drawings, to assist their publishing London. Lambert’s letters to Smith are now ambitions, to fill in gaps in their knowledge. held in the Linnaean Collection. Lambert, Quite the extent of the copying that took Derby and Smith were friends and passion- place in London and particularly in Sydney ate enthusiasts for natural history. Cove had not been fully appreciated. In par- Despite their extensive correspondence, ticular the extent to which artists in NSW three of the six volumes from the Derby were working together or in reference to each library appear completely unrecorded and other. It quickly became apparent that the undocumented before 1842, when acquired same images appear, again and again, re-used by Derby from Lambert’s estate. by different artists, and now part of differ- The drawings, bold and striking examples ent collections in different institutions and of Australian birds, plants, fish, a handful of different countries. mammals and a single scene, that in 1788, Which set of drawings might be the origi- with the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney nals is unknown, or perhaps no longer know- Cove, were so strange and wondrous, puz- able. The quality and style of the known sets zling and new they seemed almost the stuff of early NSW drawings are variable but there of fairy tales. As responses to those bewilder- are clues to a possible genealogy, to a pos- ing and captivating first encounters, draw- sible primacy, of which image might be the ings such as these are like a time capsule that source for others. connects us with the unique pre-European The Derby collection includes a single natural environment in the Sydney basin. scene of (Illus. 5) which is, Because they have only very rarely been in fact, a copy of two drawings, one by Raper consulted during the last century or more, and the other unsigned, showing the wreck- the images are also incredibly fresh and new: ing of the Sirius off Norfolk Island (Illus. there is no fading, little deterioration. 6, 7). Which drawing came first? Did one What the Library acquired with this col- person record the events in a drawing, and lection is a large piece of a much bigger, the other make a copy? Or have they been 200-year-old natural history puzzle that tells created by two separate witnesses to the same us so much about the value and the uses of events, working from the same viewpoint? drawings, about the fascination that the Brit- One was George Raper, who we know was a ish felt for the natural world they found in witness to the wrecking. We don’t yet know NSW in 1788, and about responses to the new and the unfamiliar, to a world in which who drew the other. “nature was reversed”. A few story threads started to emerge.

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7: “A View of the West side of Norfolk Island and the manner in which the crew and provisions were saved out of His Majesty’s Ship the Sirius, taken from the West side of Turtle Bay after she was wreck’d,” ca 1790/Port Jackson Painter. Watercolour (Watling Collection drawing no. 22. Natural History Museum, London)

is a bland and uninteresting drawing. The drama and detail of what is actually unfold- ing and what the loss of the Sirius meant for 5: “A View of the West side of Norfolk Island the colony, were unimportant to a copyist in taken from the west side of Turtle Bay,” ca 1797/ artist unknown. Watercolour (Derby Collection a London drawing room. ML PXD 1098, vol. 1 FL357843. Mitchell But how do you determine the genealogy, Library, State Library of NSW) or primacy of drawings? Determining Primacy First, the contents of the many collections — around 2,000 watercolours that originated from the first decade of European settle- ment in Australia — were crosswalked to each other. The lack of provenance, and the absence of signatures or dates mean though that one needs to look for other clues to understand a possible genealogy of the draw- ings. 6: “The Melancholy Loss of His Majesty’s Ship Pentimenti, those changes or adjustments Sirius, Wreck’d on Norfolk Island, on Friday made in a drawing, can often indicate pri- Noon March 19th 1790,”/George Raper. Watercolour (Raper Collection, drawing no. 23. macy. An artist creating a work may re- Natural History Museum, London) position the subject of a drawing either to improve or correct it. These changes are not Stripped bare of the desperation of the always evident in subsequent copies but as wrecking, the people and the desperate activ- in the drawing of a Masked Lapwing from ity — everything that made the original the Derby Collection, the lead in the white drawings genuine and dramatic — the copy paint used at the time to obscure a correction

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has discoloured to black over time, revealing the alteration quite clearly to the naked eye (Illus. 8, 9). Usually, more detail is included in the original work and some of this detail is lost each time a drawing is copied. Or it could be embellished. Copying is a fairly loaded word in the art world these days. Copying in the context of colonial drawings did not mean creat- ing identical drawings. And it did not mean forgeries. It meant there was a strong correlation, a conformity between some or all of the ele- ments in a drawing. Drawings might easily be compositionally different but still be copies. A copyist might break down ele- ments of an image and create several draw- ings to reflect the various elements in the original. Or the reverse: several smaller draw- 8: Masked lapwing or Spur winged plover ings might be copied and combined into a (Vanellus miles), 1790s/artist unknown. single work. Copies might incorporate all Watercolour (Derby Collection ML PXD 1098, elements of a drawing or select only some vol. 4 FL345345. Mitchell Library, State Library components. of NSW) Artists might repeat elements of each other’s drawings, eliminate or substitute components. Detail might be lost in copies. Backgrounds might disappear or reappear elaborated and embellished. Sometimes, though, even the smallest omission is glaring, important and, at times, inexplicable. The Wattle Bird, drawn by the Sydney Bird Painter, accurately depicts the bird with two wattles, one each side of its head (Illus. 10, 11, 12). Other versions seemingly replicate it perfectly but for one critical detail, the omission of a wattle that is then repeated in the subsequent copy. It is difficult to reconcile the possibility that 9: Detail of Masked lapwing or Spur winged plover (Vanellus miles), 1790s/artist unknown. the correct drawing could be anything other Watercolour (Derby Collection ML PXD 1098, than the original. vol. 4 FL345345. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW)

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12: “Wattled Bee-eater,” ca 1797/artist unknown. Watercolour (Derby Collection ML SAFE PXD 10: Red Wattle-Bird (Anthochæra carunculata), 1098 vol. 1 f. 37 FL357938 Mitchell Library, 1790s/Sydney Bird Painter. Watercolour (ML State Library of NSW) Safe PXD 226 f. 60 FL8966136. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW) This copying also suggests that artists were working together or in reference to each other, and, more than that, suggests the possibility that they were sharing draw- ings, and copying each other’s work in little de facto drawing schools. Who were the Artists? Who were the artists? We still can’t put names to drawings in many, many cases but we can often identify categories of artist. The quality of drawings by convict artists is often variable. Some are poorly executed. Others show the style traits of allied trades or professions such as the more decorative techniques of ceramics painting which are typically characterised by more dispersed arrangements of flowers and leaves, hinting 11: “Wattled Bee-eater” (Anthochæra carunculata), 1788–1793/Port Jackson Painter. Watercolour at previous occupations of convict artists (Watling Collection, Natural History Museum, (Illus. 13). Convict artists included obvious London Watling drawing — no. 166) professional artists, such as Thomas Watling.

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14: “Taking of Colbee & Benalon. 25 Novr 1789”/William Bradley. Watercolour (ML safe 1/14 FL1113938 Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW)

A style of sorts emerged to meet naval requirements. Naval drawings often feature precise frame lines usually in-filled with beige or pink watercolour inside heavy black lines (Illus. 14). The inclusion of scales of 13: Christmas Bush (Ceratopetalum gummiferum), feet was also common. 1788–1794/artist unknown Watercolour (DGD 38 f. 1 FL1000688 Dixson Galleries, State Yet drawings with naval origins are per- Library of NSW) haps easier to recognise by omission, by what was seemingly not taught rather than what Surgeons, such as Arthur Bowes Smyth, was. Life drawing, for example, was not in were often amateur artists with an interest the curriculum of the and those in recording the medicinal properties of officers who did venture into this area show plants, and drawing was also part of a suite little skill or aptitude for it. There is little of compulsory skills required for progression evidence that naval artists learned and honed though the ranks of the Royal Navy, needed the technical conventions of representing to record the coastal profiles and features of perspective or scale. places passed, named or claimed. More often than not it seems engravings Naval art training was certainly basic and prints, rather than paintings, were used in comparison with, for example, train- to copy for practice, and the effect of this can ing received at the Royal Academy of Arts. be seen in many drawings that originated Copying the work of others to learn and in NSW. improve was part of a long tradition of art Shading, volume and tone in engravings training, which mostly began with copying, are built up through the use of spaced, taper- the purpose precisely to practise, refine and ing lines, or by cross hatching. The effect of perfect technical conventions and methods. this can be seen in naval drawings which often Copying was a bread-and-butter skill in the replicate the effect of engraving lines rather art world more generally. than the more painterly technique of blend-

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15: Detail of Illus. 2 above

17: Norfolk Island Pigeon (Hemiphaga novæseelandiæ spadicea), 1790s/Sydney Bird Painter. Watercolour with gold leaf on head and throat (ML PXD 226 f. 84 FL8966160 Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW) [now extinct — Ed.]

India because of the extensive and expert use of gold leaf (Illus. 17). Analysis of the materials used in colonial drawings, and technical knowledge of early 16: Little Grebe (Podiceps ruficollis), 1790s/ colonial drawings, goes to the heart of the Sydney Bird Painter. Watercolour. (ML SAFE many mysteries and confusion which sur- PXD 226 no. 95 FL8966171 Mitchell Library, round the history of early colonial art in Aus- State Library of NSW) tralia. This is an area which is surprisingly little understood and traditional connois- ing colour with a brush (Illus. 15). Blending seurship has not resolved the ambiguities. can be seen in the work of more skilled artists One of the few remaining opportunities for such as the Sydney Bird Painter, suggesting further exploration and comparison has been the possibility that this talented but uniden- technical observation and analysis. tified artist was not a naval artist (Illus. 16). One of the unexpected features of early colonial drawings from this period is the The Use of Gold Leaf in the Drawings inclusion of metallic leaf — gold, silver and The Sydney Bird Painter’s drawings are in alloy — in a surprisingly high number of a volume of a hundred drawings that came drawings of NSW subjects. into the collection of the State Library of In the absence of provenance informa- NSW in 1902. Its provenance is completely tion, it has simply been presumed that these unrecorded and for the last three decades drawings, while they might be of a NSW it has been believed to have been drawn in subject, could not possibly have been cre-

211 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Anemaat — Drawing in the Colony ated in NSW, not only because of the lack of skill required to apply gold leaf but also because the availability of gold in the early settlement in Australia was considered to be so unlikely as to be impossible. Yet X-ray fluorescence analysis showed the metals observed in early NSW colonial drawings not only looked like gold, they were in fact either gold leaf of a surprisingly high purity, or silver, or Dutch metal, used as a gold substitute in cheaper jewellery. The surprise is that the presence of gold 18: Detail from Sydney Bird Painter, showing leaf and other metallic leaf is in fact quite gold leaf. Micrographic photograph by Kate so widespread in natural history drawings Hughes (ML SAFE PXD 226 Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW) of NSW subjects, and that it has been so skilfully applied, used to create iridescent gently beating the thicker foil to something effects in the wings, eyes, heads and throats that is less than wafer thin. of birds, or the sheen in fish. The presence of gold leaf certainly marks The idea that gold and silver leaf, and the these drawings out as something to be expertise to apply it would have been avail- valued, something that was considered to able in NSW seems unlikely. be important. Their use is a clear sign of the Yet the technique of laying down gold value placed on NSW drawings. leaf and layering it with watercolour to imitate the appearance of gold shimmer- Sydney Countrysides, and ing through the paint was well known, the Watermarks materials were available well before the First Volume 4 of the Derby Collection is one Fleet sailed from England in 1787 (Illus. 18). of those previously unrecorded volumes, Naval officers often supplied their own art thought at the time of acquisition in 2011 materials. George Raper’s will included the to have been drawings created in England dispersal of his art materials after his death. rather than NSW. There is also an intriguing reference, in the The volume is distinguished by draw- journal kept by First Fleet surgeon Arthur ings of giant birds in Lilliputian land- Bowes Smyth, where he refers to some of scapes thought to represent the English the officers giving red cloth and gold foil to countryside (Illus. 19). The park-like the Aborigines which they twisted into their qualities depicted in the drawings accord hair (Bowes Smyth, ML Safe 1/15).2 Gold with the frequent comments of the British foil is thicker than very fine gold leaf, thick that the land around Sydney and inland enough to support its own weight and be reminded them of parks with tracks wind- twisted, as Bowes Smyth described. Gold ing through them. We have, wrote surgeon leaf, as can be seen in drawings, is created by George Worgan, “a great extent of parklike Country … with extraordinarily luxuriant

2 Bowes Smyth, ML Safe 1/15)

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20: “J Whatman 1794” watermark. (Photograph by Kate Hughes) 19: Hawkesbury duck or Australasian shoveler (Anas rhynchotis), 1790s?/artist unknown. Here the interest was more in what the actual Watercolour (Derby Collection ML SAFE PXD designs might tell us. 1098 vol. 4 FL345396 Mitchell Library, State Watermarks, the faint manufacturer’s Library of NSW) design that can be seen in paper when held up to light, are unique to each mill (Illus. 20). grass.”3 John Hunter described “the Woods Handmade from wire and incorporated into here … resemble Deer parks, as much as if the framed moulding that holds the pulp they were intended for that purpose,”4 and used to make an individual sheet of paper, noted that the grass is “as fine watermarks leave a design mark in the fin- as in any Park in England.”5 ished paper. Because they’re handmade, even These estate-like effects are now under- within a single paper mill, each watermark stood to have resulted from the systematic from each moulding will be unique. So management of the land by Aboriginal exactly matching watermarks tell us that the people who regularly burned the growth and papers were formed in the same paper mould. created grasslands and networks of tracks.6 Across collections of drawings of NSW So, could these drawings have originated subjects we have now found papers that have in NSW rather than England? been created not only in the same paper mill We looked systematically at the papers but in the exact same paper mould, includ- used and their watermarks. The interest was ing drawings in Volume 4 of the Derby Col- not so much in the dating of watermarks, lection thought at the time of acquisition though that’s also interesting. The evidence to have been created in England but now of dated watermarks can only ever be indica- reconsidered as possibly, even probably, cre- tive of the genealogy of drawings rather than ated in NSW. conclusive: they give a not-before date, but Paper supplies were limited in NSW and not an end date, for the creation of drawings. were replenished only as ships arrived, so there is a strong possibility that previously 3 Worgan, ML Safe 1/114 unrelated watercolour drawings on paper 4 Hunter, Safe DL MS 164 bearing exactly matching watermarks could 5 Phillip to Banks, ML/DL Series 37.08 in fact have been created if not simultane- ously, then within a limited timeframe using 6 See the discussion of fire-stick farming in Gammage (2012). [Ed.] the same limited stock of paper.

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Watermark analysis of drawings of NSW What became clear was that, from the subjects has strengthened the argument that very beginning of European colonisation in unprovenanced drawings, previously dis- Australia, far more people were drawing and missed as non-colonial in origin and long describing what they were seeing and experi- thought to have been created in England or encing and recording life in NSW than we can even India because they were so skilful and yet put names and faces to. Cultural activities, because they used gold leaf, were drawn in writing extended accounts, recording impres- the colony, helping to establish the history sions in letters and journals, drawing what and context of the collections. they saw and did, not only found a foothold in the struggling colony, they flourished. We Conclusions realise that from the very earliest days of the So we are pulling together dispersed sets of settlement, against terrible odds and great drawings that can now be sourced to NSW at physical and psychological hardship, in a place the time of their creation, linking together for of punishment and with so much uncertainty, the first time works not previously connected. there was also space for creative responses. And so, in such a small community as Looking at the collections of drawings Sydney Cove, it becomes easy to imagine anew has opened new patterns to under- that drawings might have been circulated stand other possible histories. They engage and shared, repeated, honed, refined and with, even challenge, some of the mythology copied in much the same way as stories and about the early European past in Australia. gossip. Research based on letters and dia- They question where our perceptions and ries from the colony as well as auction sale ideas have come from, and they expose new records describing the dispersal of collections and different sources of information, creat- brought back to England from NSW has ing different perspectives on past experience. now been added to rich data derived from The emergence of the Derby Collection of technical observation and analysis. drawings prompted new, detailed art histori- Comparing the many related sets of cal analysis of the traditions of botanical art drawings from the early colonial period has production and its convention of copying provided evidence that helps determine the and dissemination. Importantly, the Collec- history and chronology of these foundation tion helps demonstrate that the colonisation Australian drawings, to understand how, and of Australia was not just physical and cul- where, they were created, using science and tural occupation of the land but intellectual observation to advance art historical infor- engagement with it. mation. To repeat, the impression remains of a Responding to and investigating the nation built on near starvation, suffering, drawings as primary evidence of colonial art floggings and hangings, and a sense of utter practice also alerted us to the precariousness futility. And, to an extent, that is certainly of thinking that we know history, that we true, but survival was not just a matter of know what happened and have all the infor- food and shelter, it was also very much psy- mation. These collections raised questions chological. we had not previously thought to ask; they Importantly, these collections present a suggest possibilities we had not considered. view of the early settlement as a culturally

214 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Anemaat — Drawing in the Colony richer, more expressive community than above the isolation, despair and hardship of commonly thought, expose new lines of a remote penal colony, and to retain a sense investigation and encourage us to look more of humanity and connectedness with each deeply at our history through the prism of other, and with home. collections. They are evidence of a healthy They laid the foundation for ways of engagement, for many, with unfamiliar and responding to the land as awe-inspiring or challenging surroundings. alienating, as endless resource or precious They exist, in part, as a tribute to our heritage, as terra nullius or a land that had incessant inquisitiveness about what lies been actively managed for millennia, dichot- outside our reach, what is beyond our cur- omies that still challenge Australia today. rent knowledge and comprehension, and the compulsion to try to make sense of it. They References signal the enduring nature of human vitality Anemaat, Louise (2014) Natural Curiosity. Unseen Art of the First Fleet, Sydney: and curiosity, of the need to push boundaries NewSouth Publishing. and explore, and to try to understand the Bowes Smyth, Arthur, illustrated journal titled world and our place in it. ‘A Journal of a Voyage from Portsmouth to All this is not to suggest that the colony New South Wales and China in the Lady wasn’t patriarchal, authoritarian and control- Penrhyn … by Arthur Bowes Smyth, Surgeon ling. It was principally a place of punishment. …’ 1787–1789; being a fair copy compiled ca. 1790. Ms. ML Safe 1/15, Mitchell Library, But in spite of this there were people who State Library of NSW. saw an opportunity, who were intrigued, Gammage, Bill (2012) The Biggest Estate on even enchanted, by what they found. Earth: How Aborigines made Australia, Sydney: Through drawings it becomes possible Allen & Unwin. to imagine the natural world of the Sydney Hunter, John, untitled journal kept on board the Sirius during a voyage to New South basin in 1788; to demonstrate that the con- Wales, May 1787–March 1791. Ms. (SAFE/ vict colony at NSW was a far more active DLMS 164, Dixson Library, State Library of and expressive cultural community than NSW). commonly thought. This has the potential to Lambert, Aylmer Bourke (1803–07), A change perceptions of Australia as a nation. Description of the Genus Pinus … Some Account of the Medicinal and Other Uses of Collections such as these have the capac- various Substances Prepared From the Trees of ity to shake up and challenge the stories we the Genus Pinus, London: White. tell about the foundations of British colo- Phillip, Arthur, letter to Sir Joseph Banks, 16 nisation in Australia. They are a powerful November 1788. Ms. (SAFE ML/DL Series reminder of how our collections both reflect 37.08, Mitchell Library and Dixson Library, State Library of NSW). and inform, but also obscure, our under- Worgan, George Bouchier, letter written to his standing of history and ourselves. brother Richard Worgan, 12–18 June 1788. They are direct evidence that in late 18th Includes journal fragment kept on a voyage century NSW more people than we can to New South Wales with the First Fleet on yet identify and name found ways to rise HMS Sirius, 20 January 1788–11 July 1788. Ms. ML Safe 1/114, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.

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